Jehu: Regicide: A Novel

By J. L. Wildeboer

Chariot commander Jehu is anointed king of Israel to strike down the House of Ahab. Drawn from the biblical account of 2 Kings 9 and 10, this fictional narrative recounts Jehu's rebellion from his early years as a charioteer under King Ahab through his anointing by a prophet under Elisha and his assault against the royal house of Israel, told in the voices of Jehu, Queen Jezebel, King Ahab, Elijah, Elisha, Jezebel's daughter Queen Athaliah and granddaughter Jehosheba, High Priest Jehoiada, King Ethbaal I of Tyre, and others.

The union of Phoenician princess Jezebel and Ahab of Israel has combined the sea powers of Tyre and Sidon and the land power of Israel--a union that is being extended to Israel's sister kingdom of Judah with the union of Jezebel's daughter Athaliah with the king of Judah. The melding of Phoenicia, Israel, and Judah is reaching its tipping point as a harried prophet rushes into Jehu's army camp and anoints him king of Israel.

Jezebel, her prophets of Baal, her son King Joram of Israel, her daughter Queen Athaliah of Judah, and Athaliah's daughter Jehosheba conspire together and against each other as Jehu's rebellion threatens Jezebel's realm.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: May 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9781666741438

J. L. Wildeboer

J. L. Wildeboer is a graduate of Calvin University and the University of Illinois College of Law. He is also the author of the novels Ragpickers Soiree (2017), The Haitian Plan (2018), and The Unauthorized Autobiography of Leon Ezra VanRaalte (2019)—loosely referred to as the “immigration trilogy”—as well as two plays, Sons of Zeruiah—Part I: From Ishbosheth to Absalom (2020) and Sons of Zeruiah—Part II: Absalom’s Rebellion (2020).

Book preview

THE FLIGHT OF AN ARROW

Jehu

I will make my arrows drunk with blood. Moses, Deuteronomy 32:42

The arrow sprung from the string of my bow, splitting the currents of the winds and tracing a slight arc in the air as it flew toward its target. For but a moment, suspended between heaven and sheol, the flight of a thin shaft of cedar tipped in bronze and guided by the feathers of a falcon determined the course of my life, the life of my King, and the path of a kingdom.

A wild-eyed, breathless youth of a prophet of the Lord had set me down this path only a day earlier, followed by the chariots I commanded. We were assaulting the fortified, walled city of Jezreel with a handful of soldiers. Should my arrow miss its mark, the King’s chariot would pick up speed and escape behind the gates of the city. The chariots following me would scatter, fleeing from the King’s vengeance, and I would stand alone, a nameless regicide ignored by the King’s scribes.

WISDOM FROM AN ARMY’S CAMPFIRE

Jehu

He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. I Samuel 8:11

There is much wisdom to be had around the campfire of the army.

If you wish to rise quickly in the ranks, become a charioteer; they have blazing speed, inspire awe and are the first into action; a guarantee to be noticed by the king and his commanders. If you wish to be the first of your village to be killed in a battle, become a charioteer; they have blazing speed and inspire awe and are the first into action; a guarantee to be noticed by the enemy archers.

If you do not want to fear the king, become the king. If you want to fear everyone else, become the king.

What sort of wisdom is this? It is the wisdom of fear and death—qualities as pervasive and as ignored as the acrid smoke from the army’s campfires. Few soldiers in the army of the Kingdom of Israel have come to the army for the glory of battle or to cheat death. Most do not like going into battle. They have come into the army because they do not want to hide in caves and gullies with their families and flocks while armies of other nations sweep through their fields and villages. They would rather face the enemy with a sword in their hands than a threshing fork.

It is a strange time we live in. Perhaps metal workers are to blame. Their arts in working iron have surpassed their predecessors’ arts in tin and copper, and every generation seems to see even stronger iron created and more deadly armies conjured from their fires. Gone are the days when after six or seven blows your sword is a useless club and the battle reverts to the brute force of rocks and cudgels. Arrows now pierce through layers of leather that used to protect us. Battle has become more deadly.

Not only has battle become more deadly, kings and armies have become more deadly. Every kingdom seeks to devour its neighbor. The smallest kingdom seeks territory and villages from its smaller neighbor to grow stronger and resist its larger neighbors. The enterprise of every kingdom is to enlarge its borders and enrich its treasury. The armies have become fiercer because they are paid by their plunder of crops and herds and treasure and slaves. Is the Kingdom of Israel and its previous dynasties, the House of Jeroboam and House of Baasha and House of Omri and Ahab, any different from the other nations? Is the House of Jehu to be different?

And yet even in the midst of a deadly battle I would still see some beauty in the eyes of even my adversary. Were they not men like me? Even after they were pierced and bleeding, uttering some vague curse or blessing for a deity I did not know, I would see an unwitting creation of the Lord and I would pity them.

Some of the old stories and the old traditions still live on. We are the children of Abraham, chosen of the Lord. And yet we still have an army. A chosen people? Chosen for what? There are now two kingdoms of Abraham’s children, the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah. Are we both still chosen? The Temple of the Lord remains in Judah. A few prophets of the Lord still scurry about our kingdom haranguing and cajoling, perhaps waiting on the House of Jehu. It was a prophet who anointed me King of Israel, but since that time they have become silent, so I am left to my own counsel. Our victories seem to be followed by defeats, and even our strong neighbors are being overwhelmed by their even stronger neighbors.

There will be other voices in this history, taken by other scribes. My scribes have told me this must be a king’s history; it must be a story told by the King alone. I have seen kings’ histories. I have heard of the blustery pillar of Shalmaneser of Assyria, boasting that I sent him some golden bowls, and that I bowed down before him. Did I not send golden bowls also to Edom and Tyre and Aram and, yes, to Assyria? Did I not receive golden bowls and other gifts in return? Does he not know that I received that same golden bowl as tribute from Ammon? Gifts to other kings, yes; for treaties, for trade, for coronations, for the birth of an heir, yes, even for tribute. I was not born a king, so I do not intend to boast like a king. I am, after all, only a soldier, and bragging and boasting has led to many a defeat. So there will be other voices in this history.

As for King Shalmaneser, in payment for his lies every year I behead two of his army who remain my captives, and send a mule with my presents into his kingdom. I am waiting for the glorious King Shalmaneser to inscribe these gifts on his pillar. I have not been at the beheadings in the last few years. I do not know if there remains any glimpse of beauty in their eyes as the last of their blood seeps out of their lives.

JEROBOAM’S REVOLT

Jehu

My father scourged you with whips, I will scourge you with scorpions. King Rehoboam, I Kings 12:15

How did I come to this wisdom, or lack of wisdom? I was a young man when all of this started, but at the time I was oblivious to the fact that anything was starting. As a youth, I did not know what prophets and priests did to keep themselves busy, but the House of Omri kept the army employed. I began in the army as an apprentice charioteer during the last years of King Omri and rose to commander of chariots during the twenty-two years that Omri’s son Ahab reigned as King. Even in my last years as commander of the chariots, there were few that could outrace me, and even those that could, could not upset my chariot in a race.

King Baasha of Israel had unwittingly groomed an able military King in his commander Omri. King Baasha in his twenty-four year reign waged almost constant war against King Asa of Judah, the sister kingdom of Israel, created when King Solomon’s great kingdom split in two. Commander Omri’s share of King Baasha’s warring with King Asa became greater and greater as Omri proved his abilities in the field. King Ahab followed in his father King Omri’s footsteps. He was often in the army camp with his father before Omri became King. Ahab was well versed in the ways of the military.

It is fitting then that through King Omri, King Baasha, a regicide who killed King Nadab, son of King Jeroboam of Israel, also trained me as well. The army of Israel that I served in was still very much King Omri’s army. I knew Ahab well before he married Jezebel of Sidon and before he became King, and I knew he had more interest in the army than in palace intrigue before his marriage to Jezebel. Temples and gods were live and let live with Ahab. With Jezebel, gods were the road to power, and ultimate power was the throne.

I talk much with my old scribe—too much he says - about tales our fathers told us of the times before King Omri and King Baasha. We lived in different worlds than our fathers. King Omri built Israel into a strong kingdom after Baasha’s wars bled us dry. My old scribe says my history cannot be understood without knowing what happened before King Omri; why our kingdom was so loyal to the House of Omri for so long.

No one fears the King anymore, not even my scribe. He knows it has been years since I have run over an adversary with my chariot. I will reward my scribe by mentioning him in my history—but I will not give his name. I will have his scrolls read to me when he is done. My scribe has his own tales. He says he is descended from a long line of Hittite scribes. He tells me of the extensive archives of the Hittites in their capital of Hattusa where his forebearers worked. I have been to Hattusa in my travels as a youth with my father. I tell my scribe that the Hittite archives of parchment, papyrus, vellum and hides have been used in the campfires of the armies of Assyria and Babylonia; only the clay tablets of the Hittites remain to this day, those which have not been smashed by drunken soldiers. Such is the lot of the history of kings long forgotten.

When Ahab succeeded his father Omri as King of Israel it had been sixty-two years, according to my scribes, since Jeroboam’s rebellion severed the ten tribes of the Kingdom of Israel from King Solomon’s kingdom. While only a stump of two tribes remained with Solomon’s arrogant son Rehoboam, the royal house of King David, not to mention the Temple of the Lord, had too strong of a hold on the capital city Jerusalem for Jeroboam to overstep the bounds of the prophet Abijah’s commissioning.

King Solomon had put Jeroboam in charge of the entire labor force of the kingdom. This was a sign of the remarkable success of Solomon, that one of the most powerful officials in the kingdom was not a military leader or a member of the royal family, but a public works official, building palaces, walls, roads, fortification, ports, granaries, market places and temples.

Ruling the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah required a special skill not required in other kingdoms of the time. Our neighboring kingdoms had their share of priests and seers of their numerous deities, but their priests and seers operated out of temples financed and controlled by the royal palace. If a king wanted to impose a new tax levy or attack a neighboring kingdom, the new policy would be presaged by new visions and oracles from the temples. In Israel and Judah, it was not enough to deal with foreign kings, or subjects, or member of the royal family who may be pretenders to the throne, or the Levites or priests that controlled the Temple in Jerusalem, or the merchants or traders; the kings of Israel and Judah also had to deal with the self-proclaimed prophets of the Lord, heirs of Moses they claimed, as they pronounced the word of the Lord.

Support by the prophets gave the kings credence with the people. King Solomon could build on the reputation of his father David who had been anointed King while barely an adult by the prophet Samuel. Solomon himself was anointed King by the prophet Nathan.

In Jeroboam’s case, the agent of the rebellion against King Solomon was the prophet Ahijah of Shiloh. Being from Shiloh gave Ahijah a mystique of authority. Shiloh was the home of the prophet Samuel who had anointed David King. Ahijah took it upon himself to anoint Jeroboam King over Israel. And why? Because, according to Ahijah, Solomon had taken to worshiping Asherah, the Sidonian goddess Astarte. If that wasn’t enough, he also worshiped Chemosh, god of the Moabites, and Molek, god of the Ammonites. And those temples Jeroboam was in charge of building? Those would be for Asherah, Chemosh, Molek and others.

Solomon was a great temple builder. He first built the great Temple to the Lord in Jerusalem - the centerpiece of Jerusalem, the focus of worship, pilgrimage and celebration for the entire kingdom. Several times a year, large segments of the entire nation made their way to Jerusalem and the great Temple. While there, the masses also marveled at Solomon’s palaces, The Palace of David, The Palace of the Forest of Lebanon, The Palace of Pharaoh’s Daughter, the Hall of Justice, the great city wall and its magnificent gates, and other public works the likes of which their fathers had never seen. Jerusalem under Solomon was a far cry from the tales related by the priests and elders of the Israelites hunkering down in pits to grind their grain to hide their harvest from their avaricious neighbors. Under Solomon, the descendants of those once dominant neighbors pilgrimaged to Jerusalem to pay their tribute to Solomon and once again pledge their fealty to Solomon and renew their trading treaties.

Jerusalem had truly become a cosmopolitan city. And how better to receive the foreign dignitaries and solidify their loyalty than to build temples to their deities as well? Their gods had now taken up residence in Solomon’s capital and were demonstrating their loyalty to Solomon the magnificent. And yes, even Solomon would enter their temples with the dignitaries after graciously receiving their gold and silver, and offer sacrifices to their gods. Solomon was truly one of them. They were not required to abjure their gods and sacrifice to some foreigner’s god. That truly took the sting out of the heavy tribute he exacted. It was far better to enjoy the benefits of partnering with the rich and prosperous Solomon than to be shut out.

But King Solomon’s cosmopolitan ways stuck in the prophet Ahijah’s craw. Ahijah would wonder aloud, How many wives did the King need? Ahijah would also ask whether Solomon’s foreign wives had more to do with Jeroboam’s temple building than solidifying his suzerainty over the neighboring kingdoms.

Prophet or not, word of Ahijah anointing Jeroboam did not sit well with Solomon. Solomon probably doubted that Jeroboam was so pious as to take Ahijah’s pronouncements at face value. If he was such a loyal servant of the Lord, wouldn’t he have refused to build all those temples to the gods of other nations in Jerusalem? What really angered Solomon was Jeroboam spreading the claim by Ahijah that if Jeroboam was loyal to the Lord, Jeroboam’s dynasty would be as enduring as the dynasty the Lord established for King David. For such a wise King, in the end I think Solomon allowed his own magnificence to take him in. Did not Jeroboam see the grandeur of King Solomon’s kingdom? Who did that bricklayer Jeroboam think he was? Solomon had no cause to sit around an army campfire. If he had, he would have recognized the wisdom of the army; a king has cause to fear everyone.

I often wondered about Ahijah’s prophecy; as enduring as the House of David? Perhaps both Solomon and Jeroboam failed to recall that during David’s life the House of David looked more like a tottering tower, not something secure or enduring. Did Jeroboam have any memory of Solomon’s half brother Absalom murdering his oldest half-brother Amnon for raping half-sister Tamar and then staging a rebellion against his father David? Or Solomon’s half brother Adonijah pronouncing himself King while King David was still living? And the power grab when David died that almost left the memory of youngest son Solomon a bloody mar on the floor of the royal palace?

Years later, when a wild, breathless prophet drenched me in oil at Ramoth-Gilead, I already knew the tale of Jeroboam’s anointing. I took no great comfort from it. Jeroboam’s kingdom still survived, but Jeroboam’s son was struck down by a usurper. Anointing oil on the head of a king makes the crown a slippery item.

Jeroboam was quick and smart enough to escape Solomon’s plan to quickly excise Jeroboam from the kingdom and from life itself. Once King Solomon died, it was safe enough for Jeroboam to return from exile in Egypt and to reestablish his contacts to easily outmaneuver the arrogant to the point of stupidity heir apparent King Rehoboam.

Jeroboam knew all about temples, and not just the architecture and the number of quarrymen, oxen teams, stone dressers, carpenters, silversmiths and tapestry makers it took to put one together. He knew how many priests and celebrants and servants it took to operate one. He knew about pageantry and awe, processions and pronouncements, incense and altar flame. And he knew the draw that temples could be and the loyalty they could inspire.

With Jerusalem firmly in King Rehoboam’s grasp, Jeroboam knew it was only a matter of time that Rehoboam, if he had half a wit about him, could turn Jeroboam’s adherents against him as the Israelites dutifully pilgrimaged to the Temple in Jerusalem several times a year. If a temple is needed, if a site for a pilgrimage is desired, Jeroboam could provide that. After all, hadn’t he just been anointed by the prophet Ahijah? Hadn’t he just been promised a dynasty as enduring as King David? Who better to be able to decree a few new temples? Based on his years of experience, and relying on a little historical imagery for those not given to critical thinking, Jeroboam provided not just one golden calf, but two; one at Bethel and one at Dan, and hired some priests to provide whatever unction was due to lend a chimera of sacredness. Bethel was at Israel’s southern border, almost within sight of King Rehoboam’s rump Kingdom of Judah. Why travel all the way to Jerusalem when you are already at Bethel? Dan was close to our northern border.

Jeroboam recruited the Levites, the national priest class, to run his temples. He found few takers. The Levites all answered to the High Priest, appointed and seated in the Temple of Jerusalem, who was very protective of the dominance of the Temple in Jerusalem. Once word got around what type of temples Jeroboam was building, there was an exodus of Levites from Jeroboam’s realm to Jerusalem and environs. Jeroboam did nothing to discourage them from leaving. If they would not support his new religious polity, they would resist it, and he was better off without them. Jeroboam did not need a rebellion of Levites in front of his new temple. It only took a handful of willing Levites to train the ambitious would be priests to operate Jeroboam’s new temples.

And festivals? Yes, just like in Jerusalem. What good is a temple without a good draw? Jeroboam designed the necessary assembly points, processional ways, gathering places, columns and platforms, marketplaces and raised public altars to help the worshipers forget about Jerusalem. And since he was now a national leader who needed to curry favor with potential allies, Molek, Asherah, Baal and Chemosh did not go wanting for their own temples.

The emigration of Levites from King Jeroboam’s new kingdom left the Israelites in Jeroboam’s control searching for an identity. They were Israelites, sons and daughters of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They had been slaves in Egypt until Moses led them out and delivered them to the promised land. They invaded the land behind Joshua. They suffered and scratched out an existence under the itinerant Judges who ruled the land before our kings took over. They had been part of King Solomon’s dominion. They pilgrimaged to the Temple in Jerusalem and wondered at the marvels of King Solomon’s city. But now Solomon was gone, and Jerusalem was no longer part of their realm.

King David had appointed the Levites as officials and judges throughout the land since they were no longer needed to carry the tabernacle around from campsite to campsite. The Levites had remained in place in the land under Solomon, even after the new idols had been introduced to the Temple. They continued to instruct the people in the Laws of God. But in the new Kingdom of Israel under Jeroboam, the Levites were gone, and new laws pleasing to King Jeroboam were being announced in Jeroboam’s new temples. Some of the laws sounded very familiar, some of the laws sounded very strange. Some actually laughed at the new laws. They remembered the old laws. These are not the Laws of Moses! they would scoff. But their new priests would explain why things had changed. God did not stop writing laws at Mount Sinai. God’s law is not frozen in stone tablets. The old laws were good for the old times, but look how much has changed. The land has been subdued. We trade with other lands. King Solomon is gone. The Lord now has two kingdoms of Israelites.

Not everything the new priests said agreed with what other new priests said. And some new laws would be announced, only to be changed the next year. The people would say that that was not the Law of the Lord they remembered. But there were no Levites to consult. A generation grew up that had not been to Jerusalem, a generation that had only heard old stories of King Solomon, who knew only of two kingdoms, Israel and Judah. Why are our temples wrong? they would ask. Gradually, only a few hold-outs remained on the periphery, where they preferred to live. It was safer. They lived like the entire nation had when they were under the thumb of the Philistines. I imagine that was not what the prophet Ahijah had bargained for.

THE SUCCESSION OF ASSASSINS

Jehu

Many servants are breaking away from their masters these days. Nabal, I Samuel 25:10–11

My scribe tells me my thoughts on Jeroboam are interesting but tiresome. I guess I am old and doddering enough now that even a palace scribe can argue with the King. I told the scribe that King Shalmaneser of Assyria would cut off his hands for disagreeing with the king’s history. The scribe asks me if I would like him to read to me the inscription on King Shalmaneser’s pillar if I so revere a king’s history. My scribe knows me too well.

Still, my scribe cannot tell me why this Kingdom of Israel was created. A prophet of the Lord had anointed its first King, but what was the purpose of this nation with the Temple of the Lord and the House of David still in Jerusalem? As the time grew closer to the time I was anointed as King, I could not help but feel that the tumult of those earlier times was starting to repeat itself under the Kings I served - Omri, Ahab, Ahaziah and Joram. The House of Ahab had grown out of the House of Omri, but it was not the same.

King Jeroboam’s reign and dynasty was a pale reflection of King David’s kingdom. King Rehoboam of Judah was mustering troops to regain possession of Jeroboam’s domain when he was confronted by a prophet of the Lord, telling him not to fight against his fellow Israelites. Having lost most of his domain out of arrogance must have humbled Rehoboam as he listened to the prophet and sent his army home, the closest he came to resembling the wisdom of his father.

King Jeroboam did not share Rehoboam’s brief encounter with wisdom. Jeroboam, sensing weakness in Rehoboam’s wisdom, called on Pharaoh Shishak, who had given Jeroboam refuge when he fled from Solomon, to give him an advantage over King Rehoboam. Shishak obliged, requiring Rehoboam to ransom Jerusalem from a siege by stripping the Temple in Jerusalem of most of its gold, the bounty used by Jeroboam to lure Shishak to invade Israel. The Pharaoh also saw fit to roam into King Jeroboam’s realm, reaping more pillage from cities in Israel, an unanticipated cost to King Jeroboam of Egypt’s intervention. Having been ravaged by Shishak, their armies bloodied and weakened, the realms of Jeroboam and Rehoboam took an involuntary respite from their anger and glared at each other over their borders. As for Pharaoh Shishak, he saw nothing in the rugged hill country of Judah or the dusty plains of Israel that enticed him to control the land, so he returned to Egypt, happy with the riches he carried away.

King Rehoboam’s son Abijah tried to avenge his father’s losses at the hands of King Jeroboam’s erstwhile ally Pharaoh Shishak, and also tried to reclaim all of Israel for the House of David. After eighteen years of Jeroboam’s reign over Israel, King Abijah confronted Jeroboam and routed Jeroboam’s army with massive casualties, even to the point of taking one of Jeroboam’s temple towns, one of the towns with Jeroboam’s golden calves, Bethel, away from Jeroboam for a time. There was war between the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah throughout King Abijah’s reign. King Jeroboam, the builder of majestic buildings and manager of a large force of enslaved workers under King Solomon, did not have a good grasp of the army. King Jeroboam died while still under King Abijah’s thumb, leaving Jeroboam’s son King Nadab with a kingdom in decline.

After reigning for two years in a kingdom severely weakened by the losses under King Jeroboam, Jeroboam’s son King Nadab was killed by the usurper Baasha, who made himself King. King Nadab, during his short reign, at least tried to do his duty as King. King Nadab was pushing back against the incursions by the Philistines, the same loose affiliations of cities on the coast of the great sea that had been hammered by the jawbone of an ass wielded by Judge Samson. At the time of Baasha’s rebellion, King Nadab was besieging the Philistine town Gibbethon. What better time to mount a rebellion in the capital city when the King is tied down in a siege days from the capital by horseback?

Rather than a dynasty like David’s, the dynasty of King Jeroboam was followed by a succession of assassins. Baasha was thorough enough. Not only did the regicide Baasha assassinate King Nadab, he also dispatched everyone who was related to King Jeroboam, eliminating any heir of Kings Jeroboam or King Nadab who may have a claim to the throne. It was probably Baasha’s thoroughness in eliminating the previous dynasty that allowed him to hold on to power for twenty-four years. Any rallying point for a successive rebellion had been eliminated.

Despite becoming a King, I am a soldier, first, second and last, so perhaps I have no business speaking of history. But as a soldier, having battled or skirmished with the Arameans almost every campaigning season, I always sought to understand why Aram became our most belligerent neighbor. King Solomon’s domination of the region since the time of his father King David left all of the neighboring kingdoms quiescent; it was better for them to reap the benefits of working cooperatively with the power of Solomon that to risk being left out.

After Jeroboam’s rebellion and the division of King Solomon’s kingdom, it did not take too long for neighboring kingdoms, accustomed to working to please King Solomon, to realize that once Solomon’s Kingdom had been broken in two the remaining halves did not equal the whole, especially when the halves continually weakened each other by waging war against each other. Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually warred against each other until exhausted. King Rehoboam’s son and successor Abijah resumed the warring against King Jeroboam, and when Abijah died and was succeeded by his son Asa, King Asa and King Jeroboam warred against each other during their reigns. When Baasha took the throne of Israel from the House of Jeroboam, King Baasha and King Asa warred against each other during their reigns.

I believe that the Kingdom of Aram saw the constant warring between the siblings Judah and Israel as an invitation to probe for a weakness that could be exploited. Since the Kingdom of Israel bordered the Kingdom of Aram, acting as a buffer between Judah and Aram, Israel took the brunt of Aram’s probing. Each Kingdom, Israel and Judah, believed it should be considered the rightful heir of the glory of Solomon, so they battled each other bitterly for the mythic crown, and weakened each other in the process. Along with outright warfare, King Baasha also tried to cut off trade between Judah and Aram by fortifying the city of Ramah on the trade route between the Aramean capital of Damascus and the Judean capital of Jerusalem.

With Ramah blockading the trade that would be funneled from Africa and Egypt through Jerusalem and up to Aram and into the Euphrates and Tigris valleys, the traders and merchants sought out different routes, drying up the international trade that had filled both King Asa’s Judean coffers and the Aramean treasury in Damascus, by bypassing the trade monopoly on the seas held by the Phoenicians ports of Tyre, Sidon, Byblos and their sister cities. It was this trade blockade that invited the Kingdom of Aram to contend with the Kingdom of Israel, and would lead eventually to the many battles I would be involved in as an army commander against Aram. It was in the middle of one of these contests with Aram that my rebellion against Israel’s House of Ahab began.

King Baasha had entered into trade treaties with the Kingdom of Aram. Baasha also had treaties with the Phoenician trading ports of Tyre, Sidon and Byblos along the great sea, the same Phoenicians who were important trade allies of King Solomon. Trade which would normally pass through Jerusalem was pinched off at Ramah and was redirected to Tyre, Sidon and Byblos, and shipped by the Phoenician fleets to the Nile and Egypt and Cairo, choking off Jerusalem’s control of this trade.

So how does a trade war between kings bring into play an old soldier like me? Trade routes are controlled by armies. King Asa conducted a diplomatic offensive to recapture Ramah. And his army in this offensive was his treasury. King Asa emptied out every scrap of gold silver and bronze he could lay his hands on in the treasury of the Temple in Jerusalem and in the treasuries in his royal palaces, loaded it on as many camels as he could find in his kingdom, and sent it to King Ben-Hadad in Damascus. Along with all of the gold and silver in Jerusalem, King Asa sent a message to King Ben-Hadad:

Let there be a treaty between me and you as there was between my father and your father. See, I am sending you a gift of silver and gold. Now break your treaty with Baasha King of Israel so he will withdraw from me.

Aram had been a thorn in King Solomon foot throughout Solomon’s reign, but when Jeroboam’s kingdom broke away, Aram no longer shared a border with Judah, and Aram would play one sister kingdom against the other. King Asa’s ploy used Aram’s duplicitousness to his advantage. It would have taken Ben-Hadad’s armies years of relentless warfare to pillage and plunder enough cities and kingdoms to equal the wealth being bestowed on him by King Asa, just for making and breaking a trade treaty, and the treasure of Asa came to Ben-Hadad without the loss of one chariot or one soldier.

King Asa’s treaty with King Ben-Hadad did require Ben-Hadad to take action against the Kingdom of Israel. But Ben-Hadad could do this without touching his own treasury. He equipped an entire army with the largess from King Asa and marched against the Kingdom of Israel. King Baasha of Israel was not prepared for this sudden challenge from Aram. He had treaties with Aram and was engaging in a booming trading relationship with Aram as he strangled Judah’s trade. King Baasha’s border with Aram was essentially unprotected and unprepared for the onslaught from King Ben-Hadad’s new army. Ben-Hadad sent the commanders of his forces against the towns of Israel. He conquered Ijon, Dan, Abel Beth Maakah and all Kinnereth in addition to Naphtali. These were not glorious military victories, but they brought their own glory. The small border guard forces that King Baasha had stationed in these outposts were politely ushered out of town by Ben-Hadad’s overwhelming forces and sent packing. By the time King Baasha was able to muster his own forces, the towns and the territories were gone. Not only did King Ben-Hadad have a fully financed new army that did not come out of his treasury, he now had the plunder and trade from the newly conquered territories.

King Baasha had been outmaneuvered. His dreams of defeating King Asa and reclaiming the throne of Solomon came to a crashing end. King Baasha had spent some of the largess from his trade with Aram in building a new trading town. When Aram turned on him, Baasha essentially abandoned Ramah and retreated behind the walls of his capital of Tizrah. After years of bitter warfare against the Kingdom of Judah, Baasha was bested by a trade treaty.

* * *

By the time King Baasha died, the Kingdom of Israel had been significantly weakened, inspiring Zimri, the commander of half of the King’s chariots, to believe that he could make as good a King as Baasha’s son and successor Elah.

It did not help that toward the end of King Baasha’s reign the prophet Jehu bar-Hanani proclaimed an end to the House of Baasha:

I lifted you up from the dust and appointed you ruler over my people Israel, but you followed the ways of Jeroboam and caused my people Israel to sin and to arouse my anger by their sins. So I am about to wipe out Baasha and his house, and I will make your house like that of Jeroboam son of Nebat. Dogs will eat those belonging to Baasha who die in the city, and birds will feed on those who die in the country.

We Israelites are studiously interested in the history of our nation. We claim to be a people chosen by the Lord. Why we may have been chosen over any other people seems to be glossed over by our historians. As a chosen people we carefully keep track of our generations, perhaps a sign of an ingrained insecurity of being mistaken for some other, non-chosen people.

I have to assume that the next usurper, Zimri, was one such student of our nation’s history. Zimri studiously observed that Baasha staged his successful rebellion against King Nadab within two years of Nadab succeeding his father King Jeroboam. Student of history Zimri most likely also observed that King Elah had undertaken another siege of the Philistine town of Gibbethon. King Nadab, Jeroboam’s successor, was besieging Gibbethon when Baasha assassinated King Nadab. Usurper Zimri was the commander of one-half of King Baasha’s chariots, not a palace position, but one that gave him a fighting force that he could command and coconspirators under his command.

King Elah of Israel ascended to the throne in the twenty-sixth year of King Asa of Judah. In the twenty-seventh year of Asa, King Elah found himself getting drunk in the home of Azra, the man in charge of the King’s palace in Tizrah, the capital city of Kingdom of Israel. Zimri brought the forces under his command from the siege at Gibbethon to the capital of Tizrah, where the King was drunk from revelry. A king who sends his army into battle while he remains in the capital city to engage in revelry is not much of king. The fact that his drinking partner was the administrator of the royal palace suggests the quality of people the King had surrounded himself with. A year of King Elah’s reign may have established that this was Elah’s style of rule, and Zimri would have none of it.

Although the name Zimri has become a byword for traitor in our kingdom, Zimri should be better known for his greed and arrogance than his treachery. Zimri assumed that if he was the one that struck down the King, he would be entitled to the throne. Zimri made his move against the King without consulting the other commanders in the army who commanded forces more powerful than he did. Perhaps Zimri felt he could leap over his more senior commanders by striking first.

Zimri withdrew his forces from Gibbethon to support his move on the royal palace, leaving commander Omri to maintain the siege at Gibbethon. On learning that Zimri had gone off by himself to strike down King Elah and declare himself King, the army proclaimed Omri the new King. Omri lifted the siege of Gibbethon and led his troops with its siege machinery to the capital Tizrah and besieged the city with Zimri in it. With only a small force to support him, Zimri retreated to the citadel of the royal palace and when no other commander stepped forward to support him, burned down the royal palace around him.

As a young charioteer in the last days of King Omri, I would hear tales King Omri would relate regarding Zimri’s rebellion. The king must be close with the army. A rebellion will not succeed if the army does not support it. And beware of an unhappy army. A commander with a following in the army is a dangerous man.

King Omri, the old soldier, died in his sleep in the palace, the last place he had ever expected to die. We all assumed it was a peaceful death, since that was how it was announced by the royal household. Years later, in the light of more recent events, it is possible to question anything that happened in the palace. He had reigned for twelve years.

It was during King Omri’s reign that the events that led to me being anointed King of Israel began to unfold.

THE DISPOSITION OF KING PHELLES OF TYRE

Ethbaal I

In the pride of your heart you say, I am a god; I sit on the throne of a god in the heart of the seas. Ezekiel 28:2

Our regrettable late King Phelles sought to choke off the treasury of the Temple of our great Goddess Astarte, and so I returned the favor. With the treasure that our ships of Tyre brought in, there was no call for the King to be so stingy. But that was not his only crime. Our Temple to the Wondrous Astarte was the center of the Kingdom. King Phelles imagined that he could rule Tyre from his royal palace and ignore the visions and oracles of the priestesses of Astarte. The Great Astarte had built up this kingdom and its wealth and the strength of the King, but the King foolishly tried to hoard the credit for these wonders for himself. The will of the Goddess Astarte is not something a mortal king can ignore.

Decree after decree issued from the Temple of Astarte from the mouth of the Sacred Goddess to the royal palace. The headstrong King Phelles had the temerity to question these decrees, to send messages asking respectfully that the Goddess amend Her decrees to suit the royal will, and even to go so far as to blaspheme Astarte by saying again and again that the Divine decrees were the words only of the priestesses or the High Priest.

I, Ethbaal, as the High Priest of Astarte, by the will and grace of the Goddess Astarte, was bound by duty to my Goddess to rebuff the King’s blasphemy. Great public ceremonies and sacrifices were staged in the streets outside of Astarte’s temple in Tyre, pleading to the Goddess not to withhold her beneficence to our great city due to the ignorance of King Phelles. The unrepentant Phelles sought to respond by withholding from the Temple of Astarte the city’s obligation to the Temple. Such intransigence could be expected from Phelles as the last of four brothers to rule after they had killed their father. Phelles himself had displaced his last brother as King by having him strangled. Astarte’s priestesses had divined that the time was ripe to challenge Phelles. Phelles had murdered his brother the King a mere six months earlier, and the citizens of Tyre remained shocked by his actions.

Greater ceremonies and processions from the Temple of Astarte even to the gates of the royal palace were held, only to be met by the palace guard. Despite my exhortations for peace, despite my calling on the name of the Great Goddess Astarte that the King not defame the Goddess or this great city, several of the priests and priestesses of Astarte were struck down and murdered by the palace guard, and more would have died had I not personally thrown myself between the procession and the guards.

The Goddess Astarte decreed that I was to bring peace between the royal palace and the Temple of Astarte. As the son of King Ahiram of Byblos, I was able to recruit an embassy of the palace guard from Byblos. A compact between Tyre and Byblos had seen me installed as the High Priest of the Temple of Astarte in Tyre, as a means to maintain good relations between the cities. King Phelles graciously received our humble procession of priestesses and priests at the gates of the royal palace, ready to receive our obeisance and tribute as had been promised. As soon as Phelles showed his face outside the gates of the royal palace, he was seized and bound by my guard and brought to the Temple of Astarte, where the appropriate rites were performed to restore the grace of Astarte to our city. At the conclusion of the rites, I strangled that dog Phelles on the altar of Astarte with my own hands, my priests holding his arms as my priestesses flayed the still struggling King. When taking control of a kingdom, the new king should leave no doubt as to who is in control and who should be feared.

Having established my rule in Tyre, appropriate treaties with Sidon and Byblos were renewed, which eventually led to my control of those Phoenician cites as well. The late King Phelles, as the fourth heir of his murdered father, felt that he was entitled to the great wealth of Tyre as a birthright. He ignored the looming threats outside our borders and over the seas, feeling that our treasury could solve any problem. To an extent it could. Rather than war, plunder and pillage which some of our neighbors practice as the extent of their art of diplomacy, our Phoenician cities made their way through the world with trade and far flung colonies and trading posts. Our accomplished ships and sailors gave us a great advantage over other cities on the sea, whose ships rarely dared venture out of sight of land.

Great wealth flowed into Tyre and Sidon, but to invade and besiege our cities would choke off our shipping, and dry up our wealth. But we were not defenseless. Attacking us risked offending our many trading partners who would come to our defense to protect the benefits they received in trade with us. Our ships were all Phoenician, the better to keep our skills to ourselves, but our populace consisted of merchants, traders, artisans, craftsmen, shipbuilders, warehousemen, diplomats, linguists, scribes, dock workers, draymen, slavers, silversmiths, jewelers, caravan leaders, musicians, singers and revelers. Our trade consumed all of our